The Productive Life: Evernote | Productivity | GTD | Systemizeme.com

Dean Ouellette, author of Evernote for Realtors, stops by to chat about maximizing Evernote for your task management system and your project related materials for yourself and sharing with your clients.

Raymond Sidney-Smith from W3 Consulting Inc, productivity author talks with us about the science behind getting things done, tips & tricks to understanding better how you...

Raymond Sidney-Smith from W3 Consulting Inc, productivity author talks with us about the science behind getting things done, tips & tricks to understanding better how your mind works in order to be more productive. Prod Pod Productivity Book Group Prod Chat Raw Transcript Andy:       Well welcome to another episode of The Productive Life Show.  My name is Andy Traub and I’m joined by my friend and fellow Evernote fanatic Daniel Gold.  How are you today? Daniel:      I’m do fabulous today Andy.  How are you? Andy:       I am good.  So you have a lot of smart friends.  I have like three, but you have a lot and so let’s introduce who we have on the show today because this is one of your smart friends. Daniel:      That’s right and well and my theory in life is surround myself with smart friends and it will hopefully make me look smarter. Andy:       It’s working, it’s working. Daniel:      It – thank you. Andy:       I’m totally fooled. Daniel:      So is everyone else.  Well I’m excited to have Ray Sidney Smith on the show.  He’s a productivity guru, a Web and mobile strategist and he has a penchant for neuro science and yes I put a little French accent on that.  So that little extra bit of neuroscience I definitely want to know about.  So yes lots of talk about with Ray today. Andy:       Ray welcome to the show. Ray:         Thanks so much, thanks for having me here Andy and Dan. Andy:       Are you okay with all those titles?  Have you earned all of those? Ray:         I don’t think I’ve earned them all, but I certainly will try my best to hold them all well. Andy:       All right, all right, because he raised the bar so if you need us to edit that out and lower the bar a little bit.  But, so I’m excited to learn from you and that’s one of the reasons that Daniel and I started the show is just selfishly we wanted an excuse to talk to a lot of the wise people in Evernote and productivity community, but also we know a lot of people were looking toward a clearing house to have these conversations and so it’s just great to be able to bring the wisdom you have to our show.               So with that I’m going to just throw it to Daniel and Daniel I know you’re more familiar with Ray’s work so I’m going to sit back and take notes and make sure they’re added to our show notes and away we go. Daniel:      That sounds good.  Well, you know, one of the reasons why I’m excited to have Ray join the show today and talk with us is because he does wear several hats.  I mean really he wears several hats.  I have no idea how he manages his day job with all of the side passions, but I think we’re going to learn a lot here today.  Just as a little background, Ray is the producer of a pod cast actually called Prod Pod it’s a pod cast of productivity lessons in 2 minutes or less.  He recently launched a virtual book club called Productivity Book Group and he runs a weekly tweet chat called Prod Chat on Twitter and Andy that’s just on his leisure time.  So we’re going to have a great talk here.               Ray I don’t even know where to start with you, so let’s first start to talk about what you do as your day job? Ray:         Oh well my day job is Web and mobile strategist I spend time educating small business owners how to use the Web and mobile technologies better in their business, operations and marketing.  So I spend my days going from city to city talking to small business owners about how they use technology in the first place from pretty much every aspect of their business and then help them understand how to do it better. Daniel:      And what’s the name of your company again Ray? Ray:         W3 Consulting. Daniel:      And how would people find you online?

Brooks Duncan, owner of DocumentSnap.com, author & blogger, talks about going tips, tricks & best practices to going paperless and how to leverage Evernote to make it happen. Resources discussed: Document Snap Evernote Scansnap S1300 Scansnap IX500 Genius Scan - Android Genius Scan - iPhone Phil Libin - This is how I work (Lifehacker) Raw Transcript Re: Brooks, Part 2 ANDY TRAUB:           Well welcome back to another episode of “The Productive Life” show.  My name’s Andy Traub and I’m joined with Daniel Gold today.  How are you doing? DANIEL GOLD:         I’m doing well.  How are you? ANDY TRAUB:           I’m good.  We’ve got the man two last names, two first names in the wrong order.  I’m not sure which, but it’s Brooks Duncan, founder of documentsnap.com.  He doesn’t hate paper.  He just wants to put it in his right place, right?  So, Brooks, thanks for joining us again today. BROOKS DUNCAN:    Thanks so much for having me back. ANDY TRAUB:           And so, let’s dig right in. The last time we talked about some of the tools.  We talked about your history and how you started Document Snap, and you know, some more technical details.  But we’re going to talk today about Evernote, specifically how you use it in your life.  So Daniel, with that, I’m going to throw it to you. DANIEL GOLD:         All right, perfect.  Well, Brooks, welcome back to the show.  You know, I want to start off with one of my favorite questions and I’m going to test your knowledge of Evernote here, Brooks, if that’s all right. BROOKS DUNCAN:    Oh, oh DANIEL GOLD:         Yeah, yeah – you’re ready for it?  Here they come. BROOKS DUNCAN:    Okay. DANIEL GOLD:         When was your first note in Evernote? BROOKS DUNCAN:    Oh, my first note was August 2008. DANIEL GOLD:         Look at that.  He knows – ANDY TRAUB:           You know what; he doesn’t know Evernote knows – DANIEL GOLD:         Yeah. ANDY TRAUB:           But that’s the point of Evernote.  You know what, you don’t have to know, right? DANIEL GOLD:         That’s right. BROOKS DUNCAN:    Yeah, exactly.  I’m sitting here staring at it right now, that’s – that’s how I know DANIEL GOLD:         Cheater.  All right, well, Brooks, tell me this.  You’ve been using it since 2008, and funny enough I think my first note was October of 2008.  What draws you to the program? BROOKS DUNCAN:    Yeah, I’m a massive Evernote fan and I think if I was to pick the things that draw me to it it’s the ease of getting stuff into it and the ubiquity of having your stuff accessible everywhere.  And the way that you can organize it without a lot of friction, you don’t have to do a lot of fiddling.  You can have things set up the way you want it and you don’t have to be messing around with a bunch of stuff.  Also, the different types of stuff you can have in there; pictures, text, all that stuff.  It’s just a great amalgamation of things. ANDY TRAUB:           That’s a really good word.  I think my biggest word is delicatessen, so that was good.  You know, a lot of people that we have on this show and they talk about it being Evernote fans, and they all describe it just a little bit differently, but there seems to be some commonality.

Brooks Duncan, owner of DocumentSnap.com, author & blogger, talks about going tips, tricks & best practices to going paperless and how to leverage Evernote to make it happen. Resources discussed: Document Snap Evernote Scansnap S1300 Scansnap IX500 Genius Scan - Android Genius Scan - iPhone Raw Transcript Andy:           Well, welcome to another episode of The Productive Life Show.  My name is Andy Traub.  I’m joined by my friend and fellow Evernote fanatic, Mr. Daniel Gold.  How you doing bud? Daniel:          I’m doing truly excellent today.  How are you doing Andy? Andy:           I’m good.  I’m very, very good.  So why are you so darn excited today? Daniel:          I’m so excited because I’ve got Brooks Duncan on the phone here.  He is the founder of Documentsnap.com and he is a guru of living life without paper. Andy:           So I’m trying to figure out if the postal service likes him because he, you know, takes paper and turns it to digital or doesn’t like him, because he turns it.  Probably likes him because it starts with paper so yeah, welcome to the show Duncan, Brooks Duncan, sorry. Brooks:         Thanks so much. Andy:           What a way to butcher that in the first 60 seconds. Brooks:         I get it all the time. Andy:           Do you?  All right, well I’ll call you Duncan, like we’re old high school buddies.  Hey, it’s Duncan, like the last name thing you know? Brooks:         I have a last name for a first name and a first name for a last name so I am very used to it. Thanks for having me. Andy:           Thanks for joining us.  So Daniel tell me, when you thought about lining up guests, what was unique to Brooks business that we wanted to bring him on? Daniel:          Yeah sure, well first and foremost, Brooks, to me, has always been this beacon of light in what I think to be this overcrowded productivity space on how to best go paperless and a lot of what Brooks had written about and going paperless in particular, his recommendations on scanners is what I used when I wrote my Evernote book and so I picked up a lot of tips, a lot of tricks and I subscribed to his newsletter and it seems like every day I’m learning something new and I mean that sincerely.  I really think that he’s a stand-up guy and so he writes about tools and workflows and taking action on how to go paperless and there is a lot of talk about Evernote and a lot of talk about productivity on his blog.  He’s also a Certified Management Accountant and he’s also a former computer programmer and software support manager and is coming to us from the beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada so I think the weather is okay over there.  Brooks, tell us first, how is the weather out there in Vancouver? Brooks:         Right now it is pouring rain, as it does every February in Vancouver so that’s something. Andy:           Every few minutes. Brooks:         Yeah, now this winter, for whatever reason, has been really mild so we’re actually kind of getting used to not having the rain but it’s back to reality today. Daniel:          Well if it makes you feel any better, Brooks, I’ve got all that rain right here in Charlotte, North Carolina. Andy:           Nope, doesn’t make us feel any better, sorry.

In this episode, learn about the power of Evernote. Daniel & Andy take a deeper dive into explaining how to get the most out of Evernote, the Evernote Trunk, and going paperless. Raw Transcript Andy Traub: Well, welcome again to the Productive Li...

Daniel & Andy kick off their Productive Life Show podcast with how they got started with Evernote, how to leverage the GTD system, some of their favorite Evernote add-ons! Raw Transcript Andy Traub: Well welcome to the first episode of The Productive Life Show.  My name’s Andy Traub, and I’m joined by my friend and fellow Evernote fanatic, Daniel Gold.  How are you today, my friend? Daniel Gold: I’m doing great.  How are you Andy? Andy Traub: I’m good.  I’m good.  It’s fun to get this going with you, and I’m excited to launch a show for lots of reasons, but one of them is of course getting to work with you.  Daniel Gold, your e-book, Evernote: The Unofficial E-Book to Capturing Everything and Getting Things Done – I know you know this, but others may not – has sold, I have to update this number; last thing I saw was 13,000 copies.  How many is up to now? Daniel Gold: Oh it’s up to more, yeah. Andy Traub: More?  Yeah, it’s up to more.  Could you be more specific? Daniel Gold: It’s up to more. Andy Traub: It’s up to more. Daniel Gold: Yeah.  No, we sold over 14,000 so far. Andy Traub: Awesome!  Awesome!  So Daniel’s a Getting Things Done, a GTD expert, and he teaches people how to increase their productivity using Evernote and Spring Pad and just the GTD method.  And Daniel’s agreed to co-host this show with me because I’m also an Evernote guide creator and a full time podcaster, and I’m not really into words or book learning as they say where I’m from, as much as Daniel is.  So I didn’t create a book, I created a set of videos to teach people how to use Evernote, and at the end of today’s show we’ll tell you more about how you can get your hands on his book and my videos.  So because you’re cool, and we just want you to know that we’ve combined those resources and cut the price and geeks like you can get in on it, all right?  So Daniel, I know that geeks used to be geeky but now they are millionaires, so that’s what I’m shooting for. Daniel Gold: That’s good.  Well enough about us; let’s tell the listeners a little bit about what they can expect from us from this show. Andy Traub: All right, so sometimes we’re going to have an app creator, and there’s a lot of different apps that connect with Evernote.  We are going to have other kinds of Evernote experts, some that Evernote has actually identified themselves, they have sort of a team of experts.  But also just ones that we know and especially you know, you have a lot of connections in the Evernote world.  But let’s go ahead and get into the meat of the show, okay? Daniel Gold: Sweet!  Let’s do it. Andy Traub: So today’s topic is why we fell in love with Evernote.  It’s sort of a love story.  So… Daniel Gold: It is. Andy Traub: It is.  We’re going to grab a tissue, some bonbons.  So we’re also going to talk a bit about why we decided to create a show where we talk about Evernote every single week.  So Daniel, you’ve got a ton of connections in the Evernote community, and we can geek out all day about Evernote, but we’ve both agreed that we’d really like feedback and questions and sort of case studies, creative ways that other people have used Evernote in their work as well as personal life.  So we’ve created a phone number that you can call, and it goes straight to voicemail every time you call.  If you screw up, you can call back and leave another voicemail.  Sometimes people get nervous.  But that phone number is really easy to remember.  It’s 414-301-DONE.  414-301-DONE, which is also 414-301-3663.  And this is about having a productive life, and that’s what we’ve called it.  That’s why we’ve got the word ‘done’ in there.  It’s about getting things done.  So with that, let’s go into the main segment, which is really about why we fell in love with Evernote.  So I’m going to throw it to you and just ask the question Daniel, when did you start, when do you remember to start adopting and maybe just introducing yourself to Evernote?  How long ago was that?